Chinese Gardens

"The wise find pleasure in water; the virtuous find pleasure in hills."

(Confucius, Analects)

This, says garden historian Christopher Thacker, is the essence of Chinese gardens:

"its intimate association with nature; its striving for movement; its representation of permanence; its ethical and philosophical preoccupations. Like landscape painting in China, summarized as shan shui, or 'mountain' and 'water,' the Chinese garden attempts to approach, to display in symbolic form, the essence of nature. This is not realistic or naturalistic presentation, but one which seeks to find the 'nature of nature.' Landscape painting is closely tied with gardening in China; indeed so much so that the four arts of poetry, calligraphy, landscape painting and gardening are thought of as interdependent, each requiring an understanding of the others, proficiency in each being necessary in order to achieve profeiciency in any one." (The History of Gardens, 1979, 43).

Chinese scroll painting, says Thacker, is an important link between landscape and gardening. "These are not simply extended rectangles of landscape, as one might imagine when seeing the scrolls displayed in western museums. Though vertical scrolls were meant to be hung on the wall, and to be seen at a single glance, the horizontal scroll should be seen section by section, in a slow unrolling from right to left; indeed to see such a painting all at once is to go against its purpose, for nature reveals itself slowly, part by part, moment by moment, and cannot be seen from a single viewpoint. Similarly, the Chinese garden is rarely if ever visible at once, but is discovered scene by scene, one scene leading to the next, which, as it is revealed, replaces the earlier and now invisible vistas which we first perceived" (43).

Chinese garden aesthetic in fact derives from the philosophy of Tao, "involving meditation on the unity of the creation, a creation in which nature possesses a hidden yet real order and harmony, and which may be seen, in moments of enlightenment, through intuitive, tranquil receptivity. Gardening, like landscape painting, is an act of reverence, as well as one of delight." Visitors to Chinese gardens retreat from the distractions of a busy, confusing world to seek solace, understanding, and wisdom through quiet reflection and meditation. "Both gardening and landscape painting tend . . . to place man in a subordinate position; present, contemplative, observing yet only an insignificant part of the natural scene. And the natural scene itself in these works of art, whether paintings or gardens, is a symbolic representation, an essence, an indication, rather than an attempt at realistic re-creation" (43).

Chinese gardens are always intentionally symbolic: rocks, pools, particular arrangements of flowers and shrubs, all have traditional meanings uncommon in western gardens. Likewise, Chinese gardens lack the formal regularity and symmetry characteristic of many western gardens, as well as the formal and artificial manipulation of water in fountains. Finally, the wide stretches of mowed lawn that often characterize western gardens are unknown in China.

Key Features of Chinese Gardens:

Twisted Rocks, Stones, etc. Says Thacker, "Curious shaped rocks have always been admired [in China]. Both solitary visits to the mountains and the contemplation of a single stone have inspired poems and paintings, and the choice of rocks for gardens has been exhaustively discussed in a Chinese treatise, the Yuan Yeh by Chi Ch'eng (1635)" (45). Stones from Tai-hu Lake are especially prized for their odd forms.

Old Hoary Trees also are highly valued as objects of contemplation--the bigger and older, the better.

Pavilions, temples, shrines, hills, etc., sanctuaries for reflection and contemplation. These are often given poetic names that suggest their special mood or character: Place of Clear Meditation, Elevation for Remote Thought, Bower of Nature. Sme places are named after their dominant plantings: Plum Slope, Peach Tree Bank. Often these places become the subject of famous paintings and poems and thus acquire aesthetic as well as contemplative significance. Cho Cheng Yuan, the 'Garden of the Unsuccessful Politician,' in Soochow is described by Wen Cheng-Ming (1470-1559) with paintings showing different garden views. Each painting is accompanied by a poem followed by a prose passage of description. Gardening, landscape painting, and poetry all conjoin to give this place special aesthetic significance.